The Fabulous Michelle Pfeiffer

By Tom Green
USA TODAY

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. —Michelle Pfeiffer's golden aura is beginning to dim incrementally as the day wears on.

And why not? She's been sequestered in a hotel room for hours talking about her new movie, The Fabulous Baker Boys, in which she co-stars with Bridges brothers Beau and Jeff. And she wants out.

"I want to say hello to Jeff," she says, looking up and down the hallway. Instead she finds Jeff's parents, actor Lloyd Bridges and his wife, Dorothy.

"We came down here today just to meet you," says Dorothy, hugging the actress. "Have you ever sung before?"

"Only once, a long time ago," says Pfeiffer, "in a very forgettable movie."

Singing is what everybody wants to talk to 30-year-old Pfeiffer about. In The Fabulous Baker Boys — which is drawing critics' raves; USA TODAY's Mike Clark will give it four stars Friday — she is a regular thrush, singing her way into two brothers' fading piano act and making it hot.

And that's really Pfeiffer singing, the first time onscreen since 1982's "forgettable" Grease 2, which introduced her to movie audiences.

She likes it that everybody has noticed her singing. It means she pulled it off. "I'm pretty proud of myself, considering where I started from. I didn't embarrass myself."

Even though people are stopping her to tell her which of her Baker songs is their favorite (her own is More Than You Know), she won't commit to singing with the passion she gives to acting. "I don't think I'll be going to the MTV awards next year."

In fact, where she is going is back to solely dramatic roles that have impressed critics in films like Tequila Sunrise and Dangerous Liaisons.

She's now in Moscow filming The Russia House with Sean Connery. She plays an editor who "lives where she speaks," a quality Pfeiffer admires.

"I'd like to be more like that," says the actress, who is fiercely guarded about her private life. "Living truthfully is the hardest thing to do. It's easy to lose track of who you are when you're in the business of creating personalities. You are forced to protect yourself."

She smiles the smile of a certified big-screen beauty. "I don't like being famous."

What she likes is being admired for her acting skills. To that end she worked onstage in New York last summer in Joseph Papp's movie-star-studded, much-ballyhooed production of Twelfth Night.

She won't work with Papp again, at least not soon. She felt exploited by him, even though she understood his need to build box office through movie stars. "But not with me."

Pfeiffer might try the stage again, but consistent with her desire to be taken seriously, she'd rather do it somewhere in the Midwest, in regional theater. "Then maybe I could have the kind of experience I wanted New York to be."